Volume Iii Part 58 (1/2)

VILLA DU CAMP DE DROITE, _Thursday, June 22nd, 1854._

MY DEAR WILLS,

I have nothing to say, but having heard from you this morning, think I may as well report all well.

We have a most charming place here. It beats the former residence all to nothing. We have a beautiful garden, with all its fruits and flowers, and a field of our own, and a road of our own away to the Column, and everything that is airy and fresh. The great Beaucourt hovers about us like a guardian genius, and I imagine that no English person in a carriage could by any possibility find the place.

Of the wonderful inventions and contrivances with which a certain inimitable creature has made the most of it, I will say nothing, until you have an opportunity of inspecting the same. At present I will only observe that I have written exactly seventy-two words of ”Hard Times,”

since I have been here.

The children arrived on Tuesday night, by London boat, in every stage and aspect of sea-sickness.

The camp is about a mile off, and huts are now building for (they say) sixty thousand soldiers. I don't imagine it to be near enough to bother us.

If the weather ever should be fine, it might do you good sometimes to come over with the proofs on a Sat.u.r.day, when the tide serves well, before you and Mrs. W. make your annual visit. Recollect there is always a bed, and no sudden appearance will put us out.

Kind regards.

Ever faithfully.

[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]

VILLA DU CAMP DE DROITE, BOULOGNE, _Wednesday Night, July 12th, 1854._

MY DEAR COLLINS,

Bobbing up, corkwise, from a sea of ”Hard Times” I beg to report this tenement--AMAZING!!! Range of view and air, most free and delightful; hill-side garden, delicious; field, stupendous; speculations in hayc.o.c.ks already effected by the undersigned, with the view to the keeping up of a ”home” at rounders.

I hope to finish and get to town by next Wednesday night, the 19th; what do you say to coming back with me on the following Tuesday? The interval I propose to pa.s.s in a career of amiable dissipation and unbounded license in the metropolis. If you will come and breakfast with me about midnight--anywhere--any day, and go to bed no more until we fly to these pastoral retreats, I shall be delighted to have so vicious an a.s.sociate.

Will you undertake to let Ward know that if he still wishes me to sit to him, he shall have me as long as he likes, at Tavistock House, on Monday, the 24th, from ten A.M.?

I have made it understood here that we shall want to be taken the greatest care of this summer, and to be fed on nouris.h.i.+ng meats. Several new dishes have been rehea.r.s.ed and have come out very well. I have met with what they call in the City ”a parcel” of the celebrated 1846 champagne. It is a very fine wine, and calculated to do us good when weak.

The camp is about a mile off. Voluptuous English authors reposing from their literary fatigues (on their laurels) are expected, when all other things fail, to lie on straw in the midst of it when the days are sunny, and stare at the blue sea until they fall asleep. (About one hundred and fifty soldiers have been at various times billeted on Beaucourt since we have been here, and he has clinked gla.s.ses with them every one, and read a MS. book of his father's, on soldiers in general, to them all.)

I shall be glad to hear what you say to these various proposals. I write with the Emperor in the town, and a great expenditure of tricolour floating thereabouts, but no stir makes its way to this inaccessible retreat. It is like being up in a balloon. Lionising Englishmen and Germans start to call, and are found lying imbecile in the road halfway up. Ha! ha! ha!

Kindest regards from all. The Plornishghenter adds Mr. and Mrs. Goose's duty.

Ever faithfully.

P.S.--The cobbler has been ill these many months, and unable to work; has had a carbuncle in his back, and has it cut three times a week. The little dog sits at the door so unhappy and anxious to help, that I every day expect to see him beginning a pair of top boots.

[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]

OFFICE OF ”HOUSEHOLD WORDS,” _Sat.u.r.day, July 22nd, 1854._